Banished
by Aurora Nova
Summary: One-shot of what goes through a Dovah's mind when you think you have the world in your claws, and then someone pulls an Elder Scroll on you.


_Joorre meyye_! When would they learn this war of theirs was futility itself? The _dov_ were stronger, braver and smarter than those puny, crawling, helpless mortals would ever be. They couldn't even fly, couldn't feel Kyne's breath under their wings; they would never know the joy of defying the pull of Nirn, bringing them down.

The three who plotted most against him, the ones taught by that _grutiik,_ the betrayer Paarthurnax, would feel his power most of all. He was Alduin, the firstborn of Akatosh, and the strongest of all the _dov. _He would savor their souls in Sovngarde most especially, just as soon as he killed them, and finished off Paarthurnax for the last time. He growled to himself. His teeth to the _grutiik's_ neck!

There, below him. He spotted the three known as the First Tongues near the ancient _vund_ on which Paarthurnax liked to perch. They were waiting for him. He chuckled evilly to himself. _Meyye!_ he thought again. He would crush this little rebellion here and now, deal with his traitor brother, then savor the sweet taste of victory later at his leisure. He swooped low, hovering over the three pitifully small figures on the snow-covered mountaintop.

_"Meyye! Tahrodiis aanne! Him hinde pah liiv! Zu'u hin daan!" _he mocked them. Fools! Traitorous slaves! Your wishes have all withered! Meet your doom!

But the female, the she-_joor_, merely grinned and called out, "Let those that watch from Sovngarde envy us this day!"

And then, the unthinkable happened. The three figures Shouted at him, as if they thought they were _dov _themselves. And the Words of Power hit him with all the force of a wing to the face.

"_JOOR ZAH FRUL!"_

He staggered in mid-air, feeling the weight of his body, the drag of age on his skeleton, the sense of mortality in his mind and heart. He felt his body _dying_ around him, weakening, becoming _vulnerable._ He could no longer sustain flight, and plummeted undignified to the ground. But if the foolish mortals thought he would be an easier target on the ground, they were sadly mistaken.

_"Nivahriin joorre!"_ he cried. "What have you done? What twisted Words have you created?! _Tahrodiis _Paarthurnax! My teeth to his neck! But first... _dir ko maar_. You will die in terror, knowing your final fate... To feed my power when I come for you in Sovngarde!"

The she-_joor_ actually had the audacity to sneer at him! "If I die today, it will not be in terror," she challenged him. "You feel fear for the first time, worm. I see it in your eyes. Skyrim will be free!"

Fear? He feared _nothing!_ The fact that mere Words brought him to ground was troubling, but he was not afraid. He would kill them, and they would not be able to pass their knowledge on to others.

While the oldest of the three held back, the she-_joor_ and the younger male hacked away at his sides and head with their woefully ineffective blades. It did not hurt – that he would admit – but it was annoying, and the only satisfaction he received was seeing their worried looks, knowing they could not hurt him as much as he was hurting them. Oh, he enjoyed this part!

He snapped at them with his powerful jaws, razor-sharp teeth just missing the male. He flexed his right wing sharply, brought his heavy tail down with a _boom_ and chuckled to himself as they staggered from the impact.

The she-_joor_ left herself open, and he pounced on her, like a sabre-cat pouncing on its prey. His jaws closed on her form, pinning her arms to her sides. Squeezing tighter, he shook his head from side to side, enjoying hearing her bones crack and snap as he did so. The taste of her blood in his mouth was euphoric, and he felt the life go out of her limp, unresisting body. This…this was what he lived for. This was what he craved. Let Krosis and Vokun and the other Dragon Priests make their useless sacrifices to curry favor. Let the other, lesser dragons pretend they were independent. He was Alduin, and they all bowed before him. If they did not, he gave them the gift of death. It was a boon he granted often, and with great pleasure.

He flung the lifeless body callously to one side and concentrated on the male warrior still hacking away at him, snapping at him and waiting for him to make a mistake. They always did.

"No, damn you!" the man cried. So, the she-_joor_ was important to this one? He would make certain to prolong consuming her soul in this one's presence when they met in Sovngarde.

"It's no use!" the puny _joor _called to the older one. "Use the Scroll, Felldir! Now!"

Wait. Scroll? He couldn't mean the _kel, _could he? Now _that_ was troublesome! It was time to finish this one off and advance on the old one before he could dig the Scroll out and use it. But the cursed _mey_ was rallying all his remaining strength, and Alduin realized with impatience that he could not get past the flurry of whirling steel in his face. He heard the old one intoning, and every word seemed to make time slow down.

"Hold, Alduin on the Wing! Sister Hawk, grant us your sacred breath to make this contract heard! Begone, World-Eater! By words with older bones than your own we break your perch on this age and send you out! You are banished! Alduin, we shout you out from all our endings unto the last!"

An undeniable force had hold of him. He couldn't move! Something was drawing him in and away from this moment. He fought, but it was inexorable. The power of the _kel_ was shifting him, moving him along the flow of time from the now to the future.

_"Faal Kel...?! Nikriinne..."_

The now faded and became lost in the vortex of the winds of time. Helplessly, and afraid for the first time in his long life, he was flung upon the currents, unable to stop himself. He could not go back, he knew; that now was lost to him forever. The _dov_ were so intricately linked to the ebb and flow of time, and thus so terribly vulnerable to its manipulation by the Elder Scrolls, where all of time existed at once. All he could do at this point was to ride the winds of time and see if he could tell where it would throw him out.

All along the temporal maelstrom he could see faces, places, events that might or might not happen. He saw the _joore_ living out their lives in peace and in war. He saw empires rise and fall, whole civilizations prosper and wither. He saw a long stretch of centuries when the _dov_ became nothing more than legend.

It was moments – or perhaps eons – later when he finally saw the way out: an opening in the progression of time, like a raw, open wound. Beyond the opening was the snow-capped top of the Throat of the World. He had traversed time, but had ended up in the same place. The images in the _tiid bo _showed several possible futures from this point. One in particular made him take note: a hero rising to destroy him. He saw the village, and the cart approaching it, carrying four figures. One of them meant his doom, but only if that one survived the events to follow. One possibility involved the hero being beheaded, but Alduin was never one to trust to a _joor_ what he could do for himself.

The one who could be his doom might escape a beheading by some clever _tinvaak_, but he would not escape dragonfire. Alduin would make certain of that. He erupted into the skies over _Monahven, _directing his flight towards the sleepy little hamlet nestled at its base. He did not notice a gray shape among the rocks near the ancient _vund, _as Paarthurnax roused from his contemplation of the _Rotmulaag_.

"So," the ancient dragon thought, watching his brother retreat into the distance. "It begins."

* * *

><p>[Notes on the Dragon language: all words are canon, except possibly <em>grutiik, <em>"betrayer", and _vund,_ which means "wall". These words were found at translate.]

_Dir ko maar- _die in terror

_Dov – _dragons, plural

_Dovah – _a single dragon

_Faal – _less common use of the article "the"

_Him hinde pah liiv – _your wishes (have or are) all withered

_Joor(re) – _mortal(s)

_Joor Zah Frul – _the Dragonrend Shout, literally "mortal finite temporary"

_Kel – _scroll, specifically, an Elder Scroll

_Mey(ye) – _fool(s)

_Monahven – _the mountain known as "The Throat of the World"

_Nikriin(ne) – _coward(s)

_Nivahriin – _cowardly

_Rotmulaag – _Word of Power, a Thu'um or Shout

_Tahrodiis aanne – _traitorous slaves

_Tiid bo – _time flow

_Tinvaak – _talk, speech

_Zu'u hin daan – _(meet) your doom (A.N.: I could find no translation of _zu'u, _but given the context in which it is used, I have extrapolated that it might mean "meet".)


End file.
